Sana Ullah, from Team ColdBox, started this project a while back and it has gotten quite some tracking that we are now releasing a 1.0 of this extension for Adobe ColdFusion Builder. If you do not know that we now have a ColdFusion IDE then you have been living under a rock. Anyways, you can get the beta of Adobe ColdFusion Builder first and then follow to install our ColdBox Platform Utilities extension.

Once installed you will be able to do the following:

• If you create a new ColdFusion Project and follow the wizard, you will get to a screen that allows you to select applications to generate.  You can now select "ColdBox Platform Utilities" and it will allow you to choose which type of ColdBox application you would like to generate: Advanced, Simple or Flex/Air Application.  It will then create your project with a fully working ColdBox application.
• You can create handlers, plugins, interceptors and model objects with cool wizards and even in full cfscript syntax.
  
• New Handler Wizard: Have the ability to generate a new event handler.  The wizard will ask you for a name, description, if you want it in full cfscript or normal tag syntax, as you for actions to generate and then you can even tell the wizard to create the views for you, again, conventions to the rescue!
• New Plugin Wizard: Are you a plugin magician or want to become one! Well, you can easily follow this wizard and generate a new plugin even with persistence created for you.
  
• New Interceptor Wizard: Are you delving into the world of interceptions, AOP, and advanced ColdBox.  You can now create interceptors with ease. You can even choose which interception points to listen to.
• New Model object wizard: You can also generate model objects with their persistence information in full script or tag based syntax.
• Generate ColdBox Applications from our 3 provided templates: Advanced, Simple, and Flex/Remote integration.  But that is not it.  You can place YOUR OWN ColdBox application templates in zip format in the provided "skeletons" folder and the extension will absorb it.  So if you want your own style of apps you can!

So enjoy this 1.0 release of our ColdFusion Builder Extension: ColdBox Platform Utilities.  Again, this extension would not be possible if it was not for the hard work of Sana Ullah, our master contributor!

I got word today after leaving CFUnited to come back to California that ColdBox was announced as The Open Source Project of the Year by the Community Achievement Awards!  I am super excited and happy about this award and you can see the recording here: http://cfsilence.com/blog/client/index.cfm/2009/8/13/2009-Community-Achievement-Award-Winners

This recognition is thanks to the team's commitment to it!  Thanks Team ColdBox!

It has been a long road and we are proud to announce our first beta of our 3.0.0 line for ColdBox.  There are over 192 closed issues corresponding to enhancements, fixes and tasks for this first beta release.  We have created several upgrade guides and what's new guide to get you started with this new release.  All of the new features have not been documented fully, but will be soon as development continues.  The major updates as we have been seeing is the modularization of its internal services into standalone frameworks: LogBox, Cache, and MockBox (more coming soon).

So if you want to start developing on a next generation development platform for ColdFusion, start now: http://www.coldbox.org/index.cfm/download

I just posted the CFUnited ColdBox Presentation: More Than MVC in our presentations wiki:
http://ortus.svnrepository.com/coldbox/trac.cgi/wiki/cbMediaPresentations#ColdBoxPlatform:MorethanMVCAug122009

I also added the source code shown and also a complete source code example for downloading.  Enjoy!

New update to LogBox is out today in preparation for a final 1.0 release. You can download it from the main download page. This update includes the following:

Ability to get a logger using a class object instead of a category name:

<cfset logger = logBox.getLogger(this)>

LogBox will then inspect the object and get its fully qualified name from it.  This is great instead of passing the category name because when you refactor, the logging auto-adjusts itself.

Tracer log level removed.

Creation of a DummyAppender that will log null messages. Useful for testing

ColdBox integration updated for 3.0 apps:

• All 3.0 apps now have logBox integration
• New appender for ColdBox Apps: ColdboxTracerAppender which will interface with the ColdBox debugger so you have access to all the logging right in your debugger panel as tracers.
• ColdBox is now synchronized with logBox instances for creating custom coldbox related appenders and logging.
• New logbox DSL for autowiring.  You can now autowire logbox, the root logger, and any logger in any coldbox enabled application via setter, constructor or cfproperty injection.

<!--- LogBox Instance --->
<cfproperty name="logBox" type="logbox">
<!--- Root Logger --->
<cfproperty name="logger" type="logbox:root">
<!--- Single Category name --->
<cfproperty name="logger" type="logbox:logger:MyCategory">
<!--- Dynamic Name --->
<cfproperty name="logger" type="logbox:logger:#getMetadata(this).name#">